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A 62-point loss to the Tigers has done little to quell Brad Scott’s respect for Hawthorn.

The Hawks sit inside the eight on percentage only despite many tagging them premiership favourites, but the North Melbourne coach says opposition sides can underestimate them at their peril.

“They’re (Hawthorn) an outstanding football side, and if we let them play their way they are going to be impossible to beat,” Scott told reporters at Aegis Park on Thursday.

“Regardless of their result last week, they’re going to be a really hard side to stop.”

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Richmond had 91 more possessions and dominated the inside 50 count while punishing the Hawks on the scoreboard,  but Scott believes that performance is not a true reflection of where Alastair Clarkson's team is at.

“We look really closely at their whole year. They’ve beaten Adelaide pretty convincingly; they’ve had some really good wins. They’ve pushed some really good sides all the way and just fallen short.”

North will place a strong emphasis on shutting down dangerous forward Lance Franklin, wherever he happens to play.

“He’s a nightmare. How they use him is up to them, but we’ve got to be right on our game to combat what he’s good at, because he can really do it all.

“Last week Luke Delaney had the big job on Brown so he’s certainly a candidate, but we think we’ve got a pretty flexible defence. Buddy, if he plays high up the ground, he’s an elite endurance athlete too so we’ll probably need a couple (of opponents) if that’s the case.”

The importance of a win is strong on the mind of Scott and his players, though the continued development of the club’s young guns is even more crucial.

“Really we’ve just got to focus on improving and that win-loss ratio will take care of itself. But we’ve really got to keep improving,” Scott added.

“The last two weeks we’ve done some things really well and we’ve done some things really poorly that have let us down for patches in the game. A good, four-quarter consistent performance is what we’re chasing and if we can do that we think we’ve got a chance to get to five-five (five wins, five losses).”

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